2023-09-17 11:56:50
In these back-to-school times, the historian and writer Gil Bartholeyns takes up his pen to write to teachers and to a teacher in particular…
Dear teachers, dear school and university professors,
The start of the school year did not fail to excite us, it’s true, but also to despair us. I don’t know if the 400 positions needed for math, English or history teachers have been filled. The profession is in critical shortage, alongside market gardeners, carpenters, educators. There “vocation crisis“will be resolved, we promise, by the revaluation of the said”most beautiful job in the world“. Well, it’s not a sure thing. A poor indexation of salaries in the face of inflation. A work overload with chronic understaffing. Ever-increasing classes. And this new evaluation system? We will have to achieve results objectives to avoid punishment? Will you be held responsible for academic failure? We know, however, that there is no mechanical correlation between educational genius and joyful success.”Oh, that teacher gives the points!“, we’re going to hear that.
At university, courses deemed unproductive disappear, too few students here or there. Everything has to be profitable. It’s global: Japan, the United States, Switzerland are eliminating dozens of human and social sciences faculties. We must abandon Aristotle and Montaigne and aim for employability. Society has needs! But which society are we talking about? Needs that must be met as quickly as possible. However, the Bologna reform increased the number of years of study from 4 to 5, and the Marcourt decree encourages staggering, with some now taking 7 years to complete. All this, as you know, on a constant budget. And the students forced to work: more than 70 percent of them now. The least advantaged are deprived of university youth. One in ten has already thought about ending their life.
So on this, dear teachers, you are equal. And now I remember my high school History teacher. He bought books and books, entire collections, facsimiles of codexes, everything he needed, everything his students needed. He had started a thesis on racism in the Hollywood western and he gave us investigations: the Salem witchcraft trials (had the institution fabricated its targets?), the Battle of Little Bighorn (the Sioux had finally won ), the incredible myths of Amazonian societies (no, we did not have a monopoly on culture). The students went to his house, several of them. They read, wrote, immersed themselves in the wonder and amazement of learning about a world without limits. An infinite library that school couldn’t provide. Due to lack of means no doubt. But he bought, and we learned, he got into debt, and we armed ourselves with intelligence, he ruined himself, and we ignored him. The credit company was harassing him. The bailiffs arrived to take everything. “They won’t get my skin, these pickles. They will have nothing“. So he bequeathed everything to the Free University of Brussels and killed himself. With the instrument of his passion for Aztec culture and the Inca world – with a replica of a dagger brought back from a trip. At home, kneeling on its carpet, in the stomach.
Dear teachers, this professor would have proved today’s equationists right: why pay yourself better, since it is a passion, a conviction, isn’t that the best salary? This professor was giving up his retirement, little considering his action; but in those not so distant times, there was one at the end of benevolence and endurance. Whereas for you, dear teachers – a teacher that I am too, hour for hour – there is almost no retirement left.
Before he comes back”Monday morning 8 a.m.“, we have the weekend to breathe, to blow on the embers,
Gil Bartholeyns
I dedicate this letter to Claude-René De Winter.
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